Via Free Exchange, a good article on how political campaigns exploit quirks in how the brain functions.

An Australian PhD student outsmarts Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton to save the earth from an asteroid.

Here's a depressing thought about the next global sporting spectacular, the 2010 FIFA World Cup: 'The money that South Africa is spending on the five stadiums alone could have increased its 2008 healthcare funding by 3 percent, expanded education funding by 8 percent, or paid the salaries of 80,000 Johannesburg police officers...'